[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 248 (Tuesday, December 26, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Page 81532]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-32814]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health


Government-Owned Inventions; Availability for Licensing

AGENCY: National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, DHHS.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The inventions listed below are owned by agencies of the U.S. 
Government and are available for licensing in the U.S. in accordance 
with 35 U.S.C. 207 to achieve expeditious commercialization of results 
of federally-funded research and development. Foreign patent 
applications are filed on selected inventions to extend market coverage 
for companies and may also be available for licensing.

ADDRESSES: Licensing information and copies of the U.S. patent 
applications listed below may be obtained by writing to the indicated 
licensing contact at the Office of Technology Transfer, National 
Institutes of Health, 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325, Rockville, 
Maryland 20852-3804; telephone: 301/496-7057; fax: 301/402-0220. A 
signed Confidential Disclosure Agreement will be required to receive 
copies of the patent applications.

Dombrock Blood Typing

Jeffery L. Miller, Alexander Gubin, Marion E. Reid (NIDDK)

[DHHS Reference No. E-185-00/0 filed 23 Sep 2000]

Licensing Contact: John Rambosek; 301/496-7056 ext. 270; email: 
[email protected].
    The Dombrock blood group was first discovered in 1965. It is 
comprised of five alleles: two common alleles, Do(a+) and Do(b+), and 
three very rare alleles Gy(a), Hy, and Jo(a) which are essentially 
different null alleles. The Dombrock blood group system has been 
estimated to be the fifth most useful blood group marker in Caucasians. 
Blood typing for this blood group is hard to do, since there is a 
limited amount of antibodies, and the antigens are tricky to work with. 
This invention discloses the gene and polymorphisms of that gene that 
result in the Dombrock blood group antigenicity. Thus this invention 
provides for the first time a method for reliably typing the human 
blood supply for the Dombrock blood group antigenicity. The genetic 
information may also be used to generate antigen-specific antibodies 
for blood typing. The primary use for the technology is to improve 
blood typing practices through molecular means and thereby prevent 
clinical problems (transfusion reactions, etc.) associated with 
improperly mismatched blood.

Microbial Identification Databases

Jon G. Wilkes, Fatemeh Rafii, Katherine L. Glover, Manuel Holcomb, Cao 
M. Xiaoxi, John B. Sutherland (FDA)

[DHHS Reference No. E-169-00/0 filed 10 Oct 2000]

Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/496-7735 ext. 223; e-mail: 
[email protected].
    The invention is a method for assembling a coherent database 
containing an essentially unlimited number of pyrolysis mass spectra to 
enable rapid chemotaxonomy of unknown microbial samples. The invention 
corrects for short and long-term drift of microbial pyrolysis mass 
spectra by using spectra of similar microbes as internal standards. The 
invention provides for the first time a practical way to assemble a 
coherent database containing an essentially unlimited number of 
pyrolysis mass spectra, where one or more is representative of each 
relevant strain, and representative of additional strains as they are 
added to the pool of microbial agents. Microorganisms can be identified 
using the invention from their fingerprint spectra regardless of the 
growth medium used to culture the bacteria. This is a result of the 
discovery that corrections made to the fingerprint spectrum of one type 
of bacterium to compensate for changes in growth medium may be applied 
successfully to metabolically similar bacteria. Fingerprint spectra to 
which the method of the invention may be applied include mass spectra, 
infrared spectra, chromatograms, NMR spectra and ion-mobility spectra. 
The present invention is especially useful for the rapid identification 
of microorganisms, including human pathogens.

Quantifying Gene Relatedness via Nonlinear Prediction of Gene 
Expression Levels

Dougherty et al. (NHGRI)

[Serial No. 09/595,580 filed 15 Jun 2000]

Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/496-7735 ext. 223; e-mail: 
[email protected].
    This invention relates to a new way to analyze the function of a 
newly identified gene. Working together, the genes within a genomic 
system constitute a control system for modulating gene expression 
activity and protein production. Regulation within this control system 
depends on multivariate relations among genes. Therefore, a key window 
into understanding genomic activity is to quantify the manner in which 
the expression profile among a set of genes can be used to predict the 
expression levels of other genes. This invention provides the 
experimental, statistical, and computational basis for nonlinear and 
linear multivariate prediction and co-determination among gene 
expression levels, and it is applied in the context of cDNA 
microarrays. Using these measures of multi-gene interactivity, it is 
possible to infer genomic regulatory mechanisms and thereby identify 
the manner in which genetic malfunction contributes to cancer and 
developmental anomalies.

    Dated: December 14, 2000.
Jack Spiegel,
Director, Division of Technology Development and Transfer, Office of 
Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 00-32814 Filed 12-22-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P